PowerBag Business Class Pack is a bookbag with a battery

Lex Friedman |
Jan. 28, 2013

The PowerBag Business Class Pack would otherwise be merely an average backpack, but its built-in battery and cables for charging your devices impress us.

When I travel, particularly during the travel days themselves, there are a couple certainties: Some of my electronic devices, such as my iPhone and iPad, get heavier use than usual, and there's never a guarantee that I'll find an available outlet. (I can't be the only one who regularly feels stymied by the constant crowd surrounding those "charging stations" in many airports.) In my testing, I appreciate the Business Class Pack's clever solution to that problem. It packs a serious amount of power, and it performs acceptably in its other core function as, you know, a backpack.

The knocks against the pack are few, and at least one isn't really the fault of PowerBag at all: That's that the company needs a version with Apple's new Lightning connector to charge recent Apple devices. On the easier-to-fix side, the bag's aesthetic could charitably be described as "frumpy." Also, the shoulder straps aren't awful, but they could benefit from thicker or more-substantial padding for better comfort.

Bottom line

A few minor complaints aside, the Business Class Pack is a fine backpack with an excellent bonus feature: Recharging my most-used accessories with my backpack proves surprisingly useful when I'm away from an outlet, and the bag itself is spacious enough to hold the things I take with me.